disengagement posts
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Is this a project vacation, a dis-engagement or a sabbatical?
August 31st, 2010
My professional development blog is all about engagement, achieving project results and accountability; critical elements to staying on track and measuring results of key goals. But what happens when one project takes a back seat to all of the rest?
How does one attempt to re-engage?
September has arrived and I realize that I have taken a serious blog vacation. Actually, more like a blog sabbatical; it has been five full months since my last post.
My first reaction is to want to punish myself for my inability to stay on track, to walk my own talk, to have dropped this ball. But, at the end of the day, this type of damaging self-talk will get me deeper into my sabbatical; feet up on the sofa, bag of chips in hand, feeling all rational and self-righteous about my decision to take a break and work on other, seemingly higher-priority projects.
Back on my feet, chips put away, I realize that a more proactive and solution-oriented process would be more productive; to evaluate the project as it goes through the stages of project development.
Stage One: Romance.
This is the beginning of a new project. This stage is full of imagining wonderful outcomes. The positives woo us and we jump in with two-feet. I imagined numerous posts to my blog, steeped with rich content and overflowing with comments from people all around the world.
Stage Two: Why Are We Here
This is the stage of the project when we start to realize all that is required. The project suddenly becomes more complicated than my blurred vision presented in the romance stage. Reality sets in as I start to understand that creating professional blog posts require things such as category definitions, relevant tags, search terms and twitter links. Blog posts need to be written well (not one of my strengths) and we thought needs to be put into the video inserts’ audio quality, lighting and editing – phew. This blog thing all of a sudden became quite a project!
Stage Three: Conflict/Power Struggle
Feelings of resistance, procrastination, frustration combined with the fight to stay connected and engaged makes the end of the project seem miles away. We have lost the hope of its initial vision or result ever coming to fruition. This is the stage that I circle back to in those moments of dis-engagement as described above; you know, the image on the sofa, chips in hand, damaging self-talk, yadda, yadda.
Stage Four: Choice
Choice gives us the ultimate project ‘fork in the road’. We can choose:
1. Commitment - a decision to navigate the conflict, get creative and choose a new, more engaging way to tackle the project. This is an exciting stage – the one when I get clear on a process for building each blog-post. It’s a simple process with easy, repeatable steps. I feel light and ready to jump in with both feet like I did in romance, only this time I know more about blogging and my commitment has some competence to fuel the fire.
2. Resignation - a decision that the conflict is too big a mountain to climb. This is where we throw in the towel and choose a new project so that we have the thrill and adrenaline rush of the ‘new’, romance once again. The bad news is that we could risk to get to stage four with the new project as well, always circling between stages 1 to 4, never reaching the delight of stage 5. If I decided to remove my blog from my site, never to post again, I would be in the resignation stage.
Stage Five: Co-Creative/Project Engagement
In this stage, we understand fully how to remain engaged; we are both committed to the process and competent with the skills needed to complete the project. With my blog, this is the stage I will get to one day. The process will be locked down and easy to deploy, I will feel as if I fully understand the elements to great blogging and I it will become a top priority each week.
If you ever start to beat yourself up for dropping the ball on a project for a more important priority, give yourself permission to evaluate the project against these stages of project development. Acknowledge which stage you are in and make a choice to move to the next. Re-engagement in a process, not a destination!
Please tell us about your recent project sabbatical.
Emotional Intelligence Series #8: How to Improve Boardroom and Meeting Apathy with Connection and Engagement
July 23rd, 2009
Total Video Viewing Time: 2:30.
In this video, I discuss the source of Boardroom Apathy.
It is human nature to disengage, pull away or conform if we sense that our co-worker or manager is resistent to a two-way dialogue, not interested in our opinion or viewpoint. Our tendency is to resign, give up, disengage … essentially lose our connection with the other and even ourselves.
In order to re-connect with ourselves and to re-engage with co-workers and managers, we need to focus on our self awareness, self management and leadership assertiveness — the sources for heightened emotional intelligence.
Be self-responsible with your own connection and engagement:
- Self awareness: Be aware of your own feelings of apathy, disengagement, lack of energy.
- Self management: Pull yourself out of your apathy by making a statement such as ‘I need to share my viewpoint on this…’.
- Leadership assertiveness: Make a clear request to be heard!
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